Compromise is critical to attain climate goals

The Op-Ed criticizing the Climate Leadership Council fundamentally mischaracterizes the council’s bipartisan climate plan. The council has assembled the broadest climate coalition in U.S. history to advance a solution equal to the scale and urgency of the problem.

Our plan, based on a national carbon fee starting at $40 per ton, would far exceed the emissions reductions called for in the U.S. Paris commitment by 2025, as well as the reductions from all Obama-era climate policies, had they remained in place. All money raised would be returned to the American people through quarterly checks, ensuring that most families would come out ahead from this solution.

The council has not finalized all the details of its bipartisan climate plan. We envision a limited provision under which, in the context of a robust and rising national carbon price that considerably exceeds the U.S. Paris target, Congress would reaffirm that companies would not be liable for historic emissions that were legal at the time.

For too long, serious climate action at the national level has stalled as industry and environmentalists, and Republicans and Democrats, have shouted past each other. It’s time to work together to solve the greatest environmental challenge of our time.